Not as good as Black on Black - but enjoyable, 18 Mar 2004

It's not bad. It advances the story, it develops the universe, and it leaves plenty of room for follow-up. The main complaint I have against the book, and the reason I'm not giving it more stars, is that character development seems a bit...well, flat in places and terribly uneven in others. I loved the development of Heyoka in the first book, which is probably why I'm so disappointed here. He is almost a cardboard-cutout character in some scenes, and in others he just seems to show remarkably little sense, given previous events. Events themselves seem to flow rather less evenly than in the first book, a problem stemming, I suspect, from just too much going on. Either a narrower focus or more development of a couple of plot threads would have benefitted the book immensely. No lack of action, though, that's for sure. And I did appreciate the fact that Mitsu gets a chance to develop and confront her personal bugbears.

After reading this book, I wonder if the author hasn't started to write himself into a corner a little, given the discovery of a surprisingly powerful weapon capable of neutralising flek. I don't want to give away too much plot, despite the fact that the author himself makes plain what's likely to happen by halfway through the book - but if they now have such a good way of getting rid of their enemies, then either the war is going to end soon or its nature will have to change dramatically, and I'm not positive the author is capable of carrying off such a widespread change to the backdrop situation.

I can't bring myself to be *wildly* enthusiastic about this book, the way I loved Black on Black, but it was actually both readable and enjoyable enough - and I'll be on the lookout to see if there is another book in the series, because I still want to know what will happen next.

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